There was too much haze to spot
Sri Lanka at dawn. I would have loved to have seen it as it is another haunt of
pirates. The next point of interest is the very hazardous looking "Eight Degree
Passage" just north of the tantalising atolls of the Maldives through which we
pass at midnight, not that you would expect to see such low specks of land even
on a fine day. A pod of eight or so dolphins showed themselves briefly but too
far out for a good look. I have strained my eyeballs in vain for a whale. The
water was again clear of debris and fewer and fewer ships were sighted - at odd
times there were none at all. Still the flying fish fly but the seabirds have
deserted, not that there have ever been many.

I had expected the crew list to
include a technical genius position. There are engineers, an electrician and
fitters but absolutely no expert to deal with computerised gear. The ship
appears to be completely reliant upon modern technology but it seems that if a
system malfunctions the officers must compromise as best they can until they
reach Hamburg. Of course they are more than capable of managing - I spotted a
box the right size for a sextant - but imagine the inconvenience, not to mention
the extra work it would require.

I
know I've already talked about the food but at the risk of repetition, here I go
again. To answer an obvious question, no! we do not have sauerkraut with every
meal. It has been served only about three times and is very nice too. It is hard
to categorise the food. Old fashioned staple is close enough with a slight
Pilipino styling, generally bland, with European influences provided by a
selection of soft cheeses, cold cuts and sometimes a little smoked salmon,
soused fish or herring with finely sliced onion and a couple of heavy breads to
go with it. The black bread or pumpernickel is quite crumbly and the rye bread
is a lighter looking though dense bread, both very good. Bread rolls are baked
from ready-made dough each day and there is a white sliced square loaf for
toasting but very nondescript. Meat does not include roast. There are spuds and
or rice and boiled veges or warm potato salad. Often there is a large bowl of
freshly prepared salad with the ingredients not mixed so that you can pick out
the combination you want from say lettuce, carrot, radish, green and red
capsicum, onions or spring onions.

You
have a good selection of condiments: olive oil, vinegar, balsamic, Tabasco, soy,
two kinds of chilli sauce, tomato sauce, mayonnaise and so on with which to make
up your own dressing. There is always a choice of eggs for breakfast except for
boiled or poached and very good tasty and well-cooked bacon. Cereal of course.
In the photo the Danish Delights are true to label while the other biscuit tin
contains muesli. Icecream twice a week. Yoghurt twice a week. Fresh fruit twice
a week: banana, orange or apple. Deserts are rare and terrible, which I don't
think is a concern for any of us. Soups are always very good. Steak is served
with rounds of frozen garlic butter to melt on the top. The only criticism is
the lack of fresh fruit. No cockroaches you will be pleased to hear.

I
have finally succeeded in cementing enough goodwill with the cook and mess man
for them to promise to advise me of occasions when the crew are having
Philippine dishes. I had one that was the front half of a fish, crisply fried
and tasting a little like piper which was pretty good though a bit dry of
texture but that is understandable. Meat travels much better than fish. One lot
of fish we had was so dry that I suspect it had been around the world a couple
of times already, and not by swimming. Mostly the crew are dished up the same as
the officers but usually from one big pot. There is also always a jug of cold
water, cartons of fruit juice and as I have mentioned previously, quite good
dripolated coffee (the crew have instant). The butter is quite reasonable and
there are heaps of jam varieties. No honey or marmite. How you do like the
"Happy Cow" brand reduced milk? There are no passenger complaints about the food
but it is a wonder I can still see my shoelaces.

One of the pieces of machinery I
photographed in the engine room was the desalination plant that constantly
produces fresh water from sea water. I had expected the water to be dead but it
is surprisingly good to drink and soft for washing hair and cloths. I imagine
that if you were forced to use nothing else for years and years its lack of
minerals and electrolytic properties may prove to be a problem, I don't know.

Standing on the pulpit for a
mid-afternoon study of flying fish I was disappointed to see yet another plastic
bread packet marking the shipping route. I was thinking to myself that in
millions of years from now this geological era of planet earth will be marked
world-wide by a thin but discernable layer in the sedimentary rock strata
characterised by its plastic content. Moments later I spotted what appeared to
be a brown chaff sack just below the port quarter and quickly leaned over to
focus on it in time to see that it was actually a turtle, tilting on edge in a
frantic attempt at escape. No speedster on the surface, its brief effort was
futile. It was probably washed safely aside though no doubt it would have taken
a good old tumbling.

The
Indian Ocean west of the Maldives could well be renamed the Indian Lake. There
was not the slightest vestige of a swell and not enough breeze to raise a
whitecap. We had a discussion at dinner as to whether or not we were actually in
the Arabian Sea which was confirmed on looking at the chart next morning. On the
photographed chart you will note the two-hour increments marking our inexorable
progress towards the Gulf of Aden. Yes, I am a bit obsessed with charts. Nearing
Aden made me think of the pencil sketches my father made from the porthole of
the troopship that took him there on his way to Italy during the war.

On Saturday night a rim of black
clouds hid the sunset so we retired to the saloon on my deck where I inaugurated
a Film Society by showing the first episode of The Singing Detective. It was
great on the large TV screen with good sound, comfortable chairs and wine at the
elbow. Moss had seen it when originally shown in Australia and absolutely loved
it. The clever English dialogue made much of it difficult for Hermann and
Brigitte but they appreciated the hospital spoofery. A couple of the officers
stuck their heads around the door in passing to see what we were watching and
withdrew looking very puzzled indeed. It is the first time they have ever seen
passengers socialising there; we are a unique group. At the end of the screening
I announced that I couldn't wait for next weeks episode and Moss nearly died of
anxiety till he realised that I was only joking and it would continue the
following night. He's was easy to tease. Margaret would have loved Brigitte too
because she has the same no-nonsense, no-pretence attitude that Mum had and
knows how to have a really good laugh. She would have loved Hermann's one-liners
that Moss has dubbed Hermannesque. They are nice people. Hermann has reiterated
his earlier invitation to later visit them in Germany. They live by an extensive
forest area and have promised walks in the woods, quaffing of local beer and the
visiting of various historic places - an offer I feel I can't refuse.

I've just come across one of
those funny little childhood misconceptions you live with for years and years,
in this case about sixty. My father had a woollen jersey with a pattern down the
front, I mistakenly remember resembling platted twine (maritime associations of
twine, rope, ships, the sea - sailor's jerseys) that he only wore for best and
referred to as his "ferrile" jersey. I always thought that ferrile referred to
this particular kind of ropy pattern until just now reading a novel which talks
about a Fair Isle pullover. Looking up the word I find it to be an
intricate multicoloured pattern knitted with Shetland wool so I guess Fair Isle
is in the Shetlands. The misconception has never caused me embarrassment as I
don't think I have ever used the expression so goodness knows why the (slightly
faulty) memory should pop up with the written word. Moss was telling us that
when the process of pearl production was explained to him as a kid, he placed a
small stone in his sock under the instep, put his shoes on and hobbled about for
days but couldn't produce a pearl. His and Hermann's stories and jokes would
fill a book by now.

Another Sunday came and went.
One of the new crew members produced a whole load of CDs that the skipper on his
previous boat bought in Nairobi for next to nothing. Each disk held five movies.
They watched Shrek 2 and Garfield at maximum decibels. I sought
relief at intervals with dinner, the sunset and attending to some washing then
retired early before suffering permanent hearing loss. The ship by the way has
an excellent two-bed hospital with a well stocked dispensary which I was able to
see when the Second Mate took me there to find some drops for a slight eye
infection I had developed that I want to nip in the bud. Propped up in a corner
was a heavily harnessed canvas stretcher-come-straight jacket that would have
caused Houdini pause I'm sure. It is obviously for securing a patient requiring
evacuation by helicopter, or perhaps for restraining the proverbial drunken
sailor?

A couple of larger pods of
dolphins were spotted out to port which I snapped just so that I could count the
dots, fifteen I made it, so given that they don't all surface at once, maybe
there were twenty or so. There was another more numerous lot further out - very
exciting. I woke up in the wee hours of Tuesday morning drenched in sweat. The
air conditioning had broken down and the humidity was tremendous. The ship is
eight years old and this system, like everything else, has been running
virtually non-stop all that time. I think they said that the main engine has
been shut down completely on only one occasion and that for just one week. Alex
was serving at breakfast with a towel tucked down his back under his tee-shirt,
a very innovative sweat mop.

I
checked and photographed the charts and saw that we would pass close to the
island of Suqutr� or Socotra that lies off the northern tip of Somalia, the Horn
of Africa. After that enter the Gulf of Aden with Yemen to the north but it will
be dark by the time we reach Djibouti and the strait into the Red Sea so we
won't see any of it. How exciting to sight my first North African island, even
though a hazy spectre. It was very dry and desolate, uninhabited looking, with
large dunes in places along the north eastern side formed by sand blowing down
from the interior over six-hundred metre high escarpments that run parallel to
the shore. The chart shows a ship wreck at each end and a few place names
connected by dotted lines indicating tracks rather than roads. An airfield is
placed in a big bay part-way along, military no doubt, though I don't know what
country owns it, Somalia perhaps. If the place names are fishing villages, then
there was not a single fishing boat or any other craft to be seen anywhere
between us and the island so perhaps it is deserted. It looks a forbidding place
for a shipwreck.

About
two hours cruising along this shore put us opposite land with a profile similar
to the Tryphena area of Great Barrier with quite high mountains jagged with the
exposed cores of ancient volcanoes. The island sheltered us from a fresh breeze
that had been providing some heat relief earlier and it seemed very appropriate
to be having the experience in such sweltering non-air-conditioned
circumstances. You can't get this on the adventure channel. Unfortunately my
nasal appendage is not sensitive enough to discern any particular smell off the
land as I expected after the Western Australian experience. (A little aside: we
were out on deck somewhere a couple of weeks ago and Brigitte reckoned she was
picking up the occasional trace of the perfume of exotic flowers wafting across
the sea from unseen land up-wind of us. I discreetly moved my Gucci-scented body
away and remained down-wind.) Early afternoon brought us out of the shelter of
Suqutr� into a brisk quartering breeze from Somalia kicking up dazzling white
horses on the dark blue sea, then by dinner time all was calm again. Air
conditions mercifully became a little cooler, especially out on a shaded deck on
the southern side.